Petr Yan walked out of Etihad Arena on October 24 with the UFC bantamweight title and a 2-1 edge in his trilogy with Merab Dvalishvili. At the UFC 333 post-fight press conference he gave his rival real credit for pushing him there.
“Yes, I’m very happy that this trilogy ended with me being on top,” Yan said through a translator, according to MMA Mania. “This was very long hard story that made me work harder and made me really bring the best out of myself.”
For two rounds in Abu Dhabi, that best looked a long way off. Dvalishvili took both opening frames clearly, and the pace had the feel of their first meeting, the one “The Machine” won going away. Then Yan flipped it in the third. He started shucking off the takedowns, digging to the body and landing combinations on the way out, and he kept doing it through the fifth. All three judges scored it 48-47 for Yan.
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The numbers from the back half are absurd. Dvalishvili shot 39 takedowns across Rounds 3, 4 and 5, and Yan stopped every one. Over the full trilogy, Dvalishvili attempted 136 takedowns on Yan, and Yan defended 118 of them.
No rankings, no leaks
Asked whether he now sees Dvalishvili as the second-best bantamweight on the planet, Yan wouldn’t bite. He said every era has its own champions and heroes, and that sorting fighters into slots is a job for the media.
“You are the ones that are giving people names,” he told reporters.
The two had real friction across three fights, and both had a respectful moment once the result was read. The UFC’s Paramount+ account posted footage of them talking in the cage afterward. Yan described the exchange this way: “We shook hands, said thank you to each other, congratulated on the great fight.”
The conversation didn’t stop at pleasantries. Yan said they also got into “a few political issues that are gonna stay there,” and he declined to share details. He noted that the cage was full of microphones and suggested the audio will surface on its own.
“At some point, it’ll come out there, but I’d rather leave it between us for now until it gets published,” he said.
That’s no small thing for these two. Dvalishvili has spoken out publicly against Russia and its aggression toward Georgia and other countries in the region. Those comments have fed serious animosity with Russian fighters like Umar Nurmagomedov, and MMA Mania reported they’ve also led to some tense run-ins with random Russians in public. Whether Yan and Dvalishvili actually settled anything on that front stays unknown until the cage audio comes out.
My take: going 39 for 39 on takedown defense against Merab Dvalishvili, after spotting him two rounds, is about as complete an adjustment as you’ll see in a title fight. Most guys who drop the first 10 minutes to Merab are hanging on by the fourth. Yan got stronger while Dvalishvili kept shooting and kept hitting a wall. Yan says the rivalry made him better, and Rounds 3, 4 and 5 back him up. I want to hear that cage audio.
